In the process of shipping one or more articles from one location to another, a packer typically places some type of dunnage material in a shipping container, such as a cardboard box, along with the article or articles to be shipped. The dunnage material partially or completely fills the empty space or void volume around the articles in the container. The dunnage material prevents or minimizes movement of the articles that might be damaged during the shipping process. Some commonly used dunnage materials include plastic airbags and converted paper dunnage material.
The dunnage material can be manually or automatically deposited into the container. A common container is a cardboard box with upright flaps that can be folded down to close an open side of the box.
Automated and semi-automated packaging systems typically employ a container closer, sometimes called a case sealer, to close the container after the dunnage material has been placed in the container. Container closers often are adjustable to accommodate different container sizes. Automatically-adjustable container closers typically include a proximity sensor to detect the container and adjust for that container's size. An exemplary container closer is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,786.